I am so excited to be working with the non-profit organization Love Food Hate Waste! We are bringing you a campaign to help end food waste this holiday season. You know, I HATE food waste, so I am thrilled to be offering you tips and tricks for freezing your veggies.

Love Food Hate Waste has an awesome post about using your freezer. It is essentially putting a pause button on the life expectancy of your food.

But, you need to know the ins and outs of freezing the food! You can't freeze all things the same way. I have an awesome 10-minute video below that tells you all about how to prep and store different kinds of fruits and veggies.

But, for those of you who don't enjoy watching videos, I've included five of the tips below.

bread:

I freeze baked goods in a pillow case. I freeze everything from tortillas to waffles to sandwich bread. I keep the pillow case full of bread inside on the the crisper drawers in the freezer. This keeps it fresh up to three months.

If you don't have a crisper drawer, I'd try to make sure I ate all of the baked goods within two months.

fruit:

Fruit is so easy to freeze! Spread it out on a baking sheet and pop into the freezer. Once frozen solid decant it into a glass or metal container. Frozen fruit is perfect for making smoothies or nice cream.

Fruit has a really high water content, so it's something that you'll want to use the frozen berries in a way that a mushy or liquidy outcome is required.

tomatoes:

Tomatoes don't freeze well on their own. They also have a really high water content. You wouldn't want to freeze a tomato and then put it on a sandwich. You'll want to use these tomatoes as a sauce or spread.

I like to make my killer tomato sauce pour into jars and then freeze. You'll notice all the jars in my freezer are old pasta jars. There's no need to buy new jars - especially for storing stuff in the freezer!!

beans:

This is my favorite thing to freeze. I make my beans in a crockpot. I put them on low for 8 hours while at work. I come home to ready to eat beans! Cooking dry beans is soooooo much cheaper than buying canned beans.

But, cooking dry beans can take a long time. I like to make a lot of beans at once. I make 3-4 cups of dry beans and then freeze them in mason jars. When in a pinch, I fill a bowl with water and place the frozen jar of beans inside. They're defrosted in about 30 minutes. Perfect!

veggies:

Frozen veggies are easy to grab at the store. They're pre-cut and washed. All you have to do is stick your hand in a bad and pull out exactly what you need. But, what if I told you, you could easily have that same convenience for a fraction of the cost at home?

You can! Just wash your veggies, cut them, place them on a baking sheet, and put them in the freezer until solid. Then place them in a mason jar or snapware.

You'll be able to grab exactly what you need and keep food from out of season on hand at all times. It's so convenient and will you prevent food waste in the future.